Friday, 18 October 2019

What A Great 'Man Cave',

that almost looks like,


 a Victorian Folly,

 four sculptural, brick columns frame this small extension to a Georgian terrace in north London, designed by local practice Urban Mesh for the firm's director, James Beazer,

 "Bricks are so often used as veneer, we wanted to use this small intervention to give the common brick a chance to aspire to be something closer to its original nature," said Beazer, "The rare projects where we act as designer, contractor and client are great opportunities for us to explore form and ideas and bring successful elements and processes to other projects across the city."

the practice tested the self-supporting twisting columns by dry-stacking bricks on the rooftop of their studio in London, which were then translated into 3D designs to test the junctions of the arches, three shades of brick were chosen to mediate between the red color of the existing house and richer hues to reference the colors’ of the garden as it matures, as Beazer himself also acted as contractor for the project, it was possible to work closely with the development of the brick-laying technique, which involved using a templated disc that was rotated for each brick course, what an imaginative way to use bricks, that somehow seem to hearken back to the days where bricks were a integral part of a design, not just to make buildings from.


No comments: